Coronavirus: Over 300 Nigerians with return tickets stranded in China, seek FG’s intervention to return
ver 300 Nigerians mostly businessmen and women with valid return tickets to Nigeria have been stranded in China.
Making this known to reporters in Enugu on Tuesday was the Executive Director of Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) Comrade Ibuchukwu Ohabuenyi Ezike.
Ezike told journalists that the affected Nigerians who travelled to China before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic are currently locked down in China, adding that they have cried out to his human rights group for help.
According to Ezike, they called from China appealing to the Federal Government through the human rights organization for immediate intervention so that they are evacuated to Nigeria.
“We demand immediate and unconditional positive response by the Nigerian authorities,” they told the CLO boss.
The CLO leader stated, “Over 300 Nigerians who travelled to China for business activities before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the World have cried out to the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) from China to help them appeal to President Muhammad Buhari to use his office to send an urgent diplomatic request to the Chinese Government.”
He said that after “several distress phone communications to the CLO on Monday night, the Nigerians said that they have been disallowed to return to Nigeria after they had completed their business activities in China.
“They have been subjected to various inhuman and degrading treatments including repeated tests, being quarantined in hotels, denial of access to Nigerian food and serial taking away of their colleagues from their hotel rooms to unknown places.
“They said that the Nigerian Embassy in China had failed woefully to intervene in their interest.
“CLO findings indicate that other countries of the world are sending chartered flights to evacuate their nationals from China.
“The countries include but not limited to Canada which has evacuated 137 citizens, and the United States of America which had evacuated 392 of their people in that country.
“Similarly, smaller African countries like Ghana, Benin Republic and Togo have sent aircraft to take away their citizens from China to their respective countries.
“The stranded Nigerians complain that the worst scenario is that while other countries of the world have not closed their borders against their returning citizens, Nigeria has blocked her borders against Nigerian returnees to their country.
“They said that they have been tested severally and their results prove that they were negative to the dreaded disease.
“In view of the foregoing, CLO appeals to the Nigerian authorities to, as soon as practicable, take very emergency steps to ensure that these Nigerians who are trapped in China and any other part of the world are peacefully evacuated from those countries to Nigeria.
“While we take sides with most of the preventive measures being taken by our government to secure our country and her citizens from contacting the disease, we frown at the act of locking out our citizens who are returning from other countries of the world.
“Rather, we request that these nationals be flown from China to Abuja or Lagos where necessary medical examinations would be made on them before they are allowed to mix with their families.
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